These are reflections I made last week about our childhood together:
If you’re lucky enough to have a sibling you get along with, then it means you get to have a playmate around all the time. I remember building a lot of things with him.
We would create the most epic couch forts by pushing all the couches together and arranging the pillows to create ceilings. You needed a flashlight to go through them.
One time we built an actual igloo – it took several hours – and once finished, Brian insisted on pushing our cat Amanda in on a sled.
Brian had a toolbox full of legos, and we would spend hours together building new kits, and creating huge cities out of them.
We played hours and hours of videogames, including Zelda, Clayfighter, Warcraft, and Civilization II, which involved building a nation of people (I remember choosing the Egyptians a lot) throughout the centuries, increasing their armies to fight other nations, having them learn how to make new inventions, create cities and roads, etc.
One time when we were living in Turkey, we re-created the world of Warcraft in our backyard, where the snowmen were Orcs, we were the humans, and we even had catapults (made out of picnic benches) to fling snowballs with. I believe our white house ended up with tons of mud ball splats on it that day.
When we were growing up, Brian was the brave and adventurous one, and I was the wimpy one. For example, we would go to a lot of amusement parks as children. A common obstacle for him was being too short to ride; meanwhile, I cried after one of those rapids river boat rides. I refused to go on rollercoasters after a particularly terrifying ride on the Scooby Doo coaster at Kings Dominion. By the time I got over my fear and could ride on coasters with Brian, he was more interested in reading than talking to his chatty sister in line. He had already mastered waiting in line by then.
Brian was always willing to pick up creatures, whether it was crabs, spiders, pigeons, bugs of all shapes and sizes. He loved sharks, and really enjoyed going to sea world, where he once put his hands in the water and picked up a stingray (I can’t remember if he was allowed to do that)—meanwhile, I was convinced my grandma’s pool had invisible sharks in it and avoided the deep end when they were feeding.
When we would go fishing in Florida at our grandparents’ house, I could never hook my shrimp because their snapping mechanism that proects them from pedators totally worked on me; Brian seemed to enjoy the challenge.
In Venice, Brian chased after pigeons and actually caught one. One landed on my head, perched on my new Captain’s hat I had just bought at the tourist stand, and pooped on my head.
On skiiing trips, Brian quickly upgraded to Black Diamonds, whereas I could barely handle the blue intermediate hills. A particularly memorable trip involved Brian hanging 20 feet in the air from a ski lift from his ski pole, which had gotten snagged. I think he was skiing the next day. Brave guy!
Having Brian as a brother also meant I had a co-worker; we could complain about “the bosses” (our parents, grandma, etc.), get into mischief behind our parents’ back.
I remember one day Brian making sure I knew all the cuss words (I may have insisted on this knowledge).
Brian loved horror movies, and even though I was definitely too young to watch them (7), he would let me hang around and enjoy such 80s classics as Arachnophobia, Pet Cemetery, Leprechaun, and Chucky.
Almost every Christmas we would reminisce about how our paternal Grandmother would force us to eat mushrooms, EVEN THOUGH WE DIDN’T LIKE MUSHROOMS.
We would make fun of our mom’s “troll-like” dancing.
How unfair our time-outs were, and when Dad would accuse us of crocodile’s tears.
How mom didn’t understand how amazing The Simpsons was because she happened to walk in on us watching the episode where Sideshow Bob is trying to kill Bart (arguably one of the best episodes).
Putting the cats into laundry bags, then carrying them to another part of the house and letting them out, and laughing at how confused they looked when they came out.
I think what was really unique about Brian was that even as an adult, he still had a childlike spirit. I always appreciated his desire to make Christmas special – he would insist we make a fire, put on tunes (although I usually insisted on Christmas music, which he did indeed hate), put the presents around the decorated tree, and the presents in the morning was a big deal. He would call me months in advance to ask what I wanted (he did that for birthdays too). This past Christmas, he insisted Dave and I go ice-skating with Mari—it was ridiculously fun!
As I’m getting older, I realize that it becomes harder and harder to be amongst people willing to bring the Christmas spirit. Since I always appreciated it in Brian—and I think having a childlike spirit is an incredibly freeing and creative life to live—I am going to try to be more like him with my family, with Dave, with my friends, and with strangers. I think we all appreciate these types of people, even if we don’t acknowledge it.
